Boxee Beta Goes Public, Download Now — The Boxee Beta is officially out. You can grab it here. — The Beta is available for Mac, Windows and Ubuntu (including 64bit.. ). The version is still not available for Apple TV, yet, but we are working with the atv-creator community, and look forward to having news on this front.

Apple Seizes 16 Domain Names From A Guy In One Fell Swoop — When you own domain names associated with the trademarks of a large company, more often than not, they're going to file a complaint with the ICANN UDRP (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy). And more often than not, they're going to win control of the name.

Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus first hands-on (video)! — We just had a chance to play around with the new Palm Pre Plus (and Palm Pixi Plus), and we must say — they've made some solid improvements to these devices. We're going to focus on the Pre, since it's really had the bulk of the changes.

Google's Book Scanning Technology Revealed — Google was awarded a patent for a device to rapidly scan high-quality of images of books last March, as reported by NPR and CNet. However, no one has been able to get a glimpse of how the system works in practice, until now.

Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX — Often, when we meet other game developers and say that we use OpenGL for our game Overgrowth, we're met with stares of disbelief — why would anyone use OpenGL? DirectX is the future. When we tell graphics card representatives that we use OpenGL …

The Other HP Slate Runs On Android — Last night, during his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off a prototype for a new HP Slate computer running on Windows 7. It was supposed to be an Apple-stealing moment and it was Microsoft's moment …

Russia Considers Banning Sex Online in the Daytime — Can you imagine going to YouTube following a link on Twitter to watch some video recommended by a friend as a funny one (though NSFW) and since you are not at work, you feel perfectly safe clicking the link to watch it as this is exactly …

Microsoft: Google's Phone Plan ‘Very Difficult’ — Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp.'s Robbie Bach, head of the division that makes mobile-phone programs, said Google Inc. will have a hard time attracting partners to its wireless software after introducing its own handset.

USGS Develops Twitter-Based Earthquake Detection System — Seismologists say Twitter is the fastest way to get information out of an earthquake area, especially in those less densely populated. — People love to tweet about what's going on around them, especially when that something is exciting or otherwise newsworthy.

Intel CEO shows first Moorestown smartphone — IDG News Service - Intel on Thursday showed the first smartphone based on its upcoming Moorestown platform for mobile devices. — The GW990 smartphone will be made by LG Electronics and ship during the second half of the year …

Google muses about ads in Street View — It might have been just a trial balloon, but last year Google floated the idea of putting ads in Street View. — Could virtual billboards one day show up in Google Street View? — A few months ago, Google gave a presentation to marketing …

Why Twitter is Digg's biggest threat — The launch of the social news site Digg in 2004 was the perfect example of a good idea at the right time. That was the year the term “Web 2.0″ started being thrown about to describe the rise of new web technologies that allowed for more interactive sites …

Some Observations on Rootkits — Getting hit by a live rootkit infection is among the more unfortunate fates that can befall an unsuspecting computer user. A rootkit burrows deep into the system, modifying it at a low-level in order to hide itself and other malware, and from there fights off attempts at deactivation and removal.

Intel announces AppUp, an app store for netbooks and beyond — It seems like the app store model popularized by Apple's iPhone is on its way from smartphones to other devices. Today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, chip-maker Intel announced that a beta test version of the AppUpCenter …

Greenpeace ranks Apple as greenest electronics maker — After falling prey to harsh criticism from Greenpeace over its use of toxic chemicals in products for years on end, Apple was honored this week with the environmental advocacy group's top ranking as the greenest electronics maker.

768-bit RSA cracked, 1024-bit safe (for now) — With the increasing computing power available to even casual users, the security-conscious have had to move on to increasingly robust encryption, lest they find their information vulnerable to brute-force attacks.

Embedded Wireless: A Step Towards Dumb Pipes? — At a FierceWireless panel during the CES show today, panelists from Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile discussed the progress the embedded sector has seen over the past year and is expected to show in 2010. Embedded wireless, from a consumer electronics perspective …

About Techmeme:

At this moment, the must-read stories in technology are scattered across hundreds of news sites and blogs. That's far too much for any reader to follow.

Fortunately, Techmeme arranges all of these links into a single, easy-to-scan page. Our goal is to become your tech news site of record.